Kloucek Recognizes Voters’ Concerns About Data Centers; Haggar Whistling in Headwind

Data centers are a huge issue for voters in this year’s election:

Voters share an opposition to data centers that scrambles usual party lines, according to the latest poll from PBS News, NPR and Marist. Public opposition especially hardens when people are asked about construction in their own communities.

Fifty-eight percent of U.S. voters say the construction of new data centers by companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI will mostly have a negative effect on the country. And 65% of voters oppose construction in their communities, including 43% who are strongly opposed. A quarter of voters say they support data center construction.

…The intense opposition to data centers has had far-reaching effects this year. At least 75 data center projects worth roughly $130 billion were blocked or delayed in the first three months of 2026, according to Data Center Watch, a research project tracking opposition efforts. The National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in an August memo obtained by Axios that data centers had become a “sleeper issue” for the entire cycle. And candidates in both parties have featured ads on the issue [Matt Loffman, “Voters Don’t Like Data Centers. They Really Don’t Like Them Close to Home,” PBS News, 2026.09.23].

Widespread concern over data centers and the artificial intelligence they make possible is reshaping the political landscape:

Data centers have “upended politics as we know it,” says Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. It’s more than a not-in-my-backyard issue, he says — it also reflects existential fears that artificial intelligence will take jobs or eliminate humanity entirely.

“People just feel like they no longer have control over the technology, [and] that worries them,” West says. “This is a real grassroots movement. It’s ordinary people all across the country, both Republicans and Democrats” [Scott Neuman, “The Data Center Backlash Is Reshaping American Politics—One Community at a Time,” NPR: All Things Considered, 2026.09.21].

Data centers and AI are as big of an issue for voters as the Iran war and a bigger issue than immigration, health insurance, and tariffs:

…when asked their top concerns if Republicans retain Congress, 18% of voters in the survey cited a failure to regulate AI and data centers. That tied continued military efforts in Iran and outranked continued Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations at 15%, cuts to health insurance subsidies at 10% and an extension of Trump’s tariffs at 5% [Luke Fountain, “Trump Is Pushing a Massive AI Buildout. His Own Voters Are Wary of What Comes with It,” CNBC, 2026.10.24].

Perennial man of the people Frank Kloucek, who is running for a seat on the Public Utilities Commission that has a big say on the power plants that would support data centers built in South Dakota, hears voters talking about data centers:

Voters have several topics on their minds this election season, including hyperscale data centers, which need a lot of energy. The candidates answer in different ways when asked whether voters are bringing up data centers.

“Everywhere we go, data centers are probably the hot topic of the entire campaign,” Kloucek said [Dan Santella, “Update on the Race: Haggar and Kloucek for PUC Seat,” KELO-TV, 2026.10.21].

Kloucek’s opponent in the PUC race, longtime corporate tool Don Haggar, evidently isn’t talking to the same voters or as many voters as Kloucek. He pretends data centers are a big voting issue:

“Not as much as you might think,” Haggar said. “Again, they’re a lot more interested in the cost of living” [Santella, 2026.10.21].

Democrat Kloucek has called for a one-year ban on new AI data center construction, while Republican Haggar calls standing in the way of data centers “reckless and pandering” (but pandering to whom—the majority of voters who don’t want a data center in their back yard?). When pressed, Haggar says he’s neither for or against data centers, which along with his strange claim that he’s not hearing much voter talk about data centers, sounds like an effort to downplay the importance of the issue to the electorate.

Haggar may just be sticking his head in the sand to avoid acknowledging that data centers put his party in a bad spot, potentially losing them their rural base:

Americans who live near data centers—specifically, within a mile or so—have become more likely than others to vote for Democrats this cycle, a new YouGov/Economist survey suggests.

Since May alone, the share of people living near data centers who plan to vote Democratic has risen from 54 percent to 61 percent, according to the poll,released October 12. Nationwide, voter preferences have shifted too, but by a much smaller margin: from 53 percent to 55 percent.

Over the past year, developers have secured land leases and begun construction on new “hyperscale” data centers at a dizzying rate—often operating too fast to, or simply choosing not to, involve nearby communities much in the zoning process. This dynamic is mostly playing out in rural and suburban areas, where, across the political spectrum, nobody seems to want to play host to a neighborhood data center [Sophie Hurwitz, “Voters Near Data Centers Are Ditching the GOP in Droves,” Mother Jones, 2026.10.14].

On the issue of data centers, Frank Kloucek is listening to the voters, while Haggar seems to be wishing their valid concerns away.